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There's nothing wrong with 11 episodes in regards to telling a good story, there's numerous 90 minute movies that can do it well enough so why isn't 11 episodes enough? Maybe adapting ongoing manga series like Kuragehime and trying to shove them into just 11 episodes is what they shouldn't be doing.

There's nothing wrong with 11 episodes in regards to telling a good story, there's numerous 90 minute movies that can do it well enough so why isn't 11 episodes enough? Maybe adapting ongoing manga series like Kuragehime and trying to shove them into just 11 episodes is what they shouldn't be doing.

I've argued as such before, but people don't seem to understand .

Granted, better more well paced stories tend to do better in 2 cours because the stories in anime always try to incorporate too many details or fluff episodes.

Can someone who follows manga fill us in on the state of josei manga these days? I've been wondering if the shift in content that we've seen over the past year or so on noitaminA reflects a decline in josei manga. Are there just fewer works like Paradise Kiss, Hataraki Man, and Nodame Cantabile that were the foundation for noitaminA at its inception?

Can someone who follows manga fill us in on the state of josei manga these days? I've been wondering if the shift in content that we've seen over the past year or so on noitaminA reflects a decline in josei manga. Are there just fewer works like Paradise Kiss, Hataraki Man, and Nodame Cantabile that were the foundation for noitaminA at its inception?

From it's inception Noitamina was not purely Josei, and there is going to be Usagi Drop in Summer (which seems Josei to me), likewise in winter they had Horou Musuko.

But generally Josei is, and has always been the smallest manga demographic. I suppose at it's inception Noitamina had many succesful Josei series that had been around for a while to be used for adaptations.

I think the current shift towards original works is a good trend however. Anime shouldn't just parrot Manga.

I realize that josei is the smallest segment of the manga industry. What I'm wondering about is whether it's also in decline, especially if we leave out the BL/yaoi segment of josei. Are there just not many manga or novels along the lines of Hataraki Man these days?

I'd like to see original works, too, but production committees release anime adaptations to promote sales of manga as much as anything else. While noitaminA has had more original works than the average anime slot, the majority of its shows have been based on existing manga and novels.

Wikipedia reports that Hourou Musoko was serialized in a seinen magazine called Comic Beam. However both Usagi Drop and Kuragehime are characterized as josei.

What started as an anime slot designed to appeal to young women with shows like H&C, ParaKiss and Nodame, now seems to give that audience rather short shrift. And their most recent josei show, Kuragehime, had an obvious "otaku" bent that wasn't a feature of the first couple of years of noitaminA.

What started as an anime slot designed to appeal to young women with shows like H&C, ParaKiss and Nodame, now seems to give that audience rather short shrift. And their most recent josei show, Kuragehime, had an obvious "otaku" bent that wasn't a feature of the first couple of years of noitaminA.

Not at all, the 3rd noitamina show (ayakashi) was not josei at all. Noitamina exists to widen the audience of Anime, including to young women. In that sense if there's any tendency in Noitamina it's to avoid obvious "Otaku bait" shows.

Hourou Musuko may be Seinen, but I could easily see it appealing to women more then Men, with it's soft art style, dramatic plot and gender issues explored.

Of their current crop I could see AnoHana appealing to women, and obviously Usagi drop next season.

If we look at the previous few seasons they seem to be following a kind of balanced approach with 1 drama show generally aimed at women, and something more SF/Fantasy aimed at Men, but both being enjoyable by either demographic.
This season we have AnoHana (women) and C (Men).
Last was Fractale (men) and Horou Musuko (women),
Before that Kuragehime and Moyashimon (women) and Shiki (men).
Next season is Usagi Drop (women) and No. 6 (men).
This seems a pretty good tactic to me as they're hitting both demographics evenly.

Some are decrying the 1 cour series as well, but if you look at Noitamina's history only 3 series have been 2 cour(Honey and Clover, Nodame Cantabile and Shiki) so this is obviously they're style. I would prefer if they had 12 episode seasons over the rather short 11.

I've been wondering if the shift in content that we've seen over the past year or so on noitaminA reflects a decline in josei manga. Are there just fewer works like Paradise Kiss, Hataraki Man, and Nodame Cantabile that were the foundation for noitaminA at its inception?

There probably aren't many works that can attain the DVD success of Honey & Clover or Nodame Cantabile.

While I don't know if there's a decline in the quality of josei manga, I doubt it makes much difference either way. noitaminA producers are under pressure to drive up home video sales since ratings alone can't make the slot profitable.

Implied BL is the key. It depends on how heavy BONES makes the implied stuff (from what I've heard about the manga, it's rife with it).

Honestly, I can see the shows on noitaminA appealing to both genders. They're very 'gray area' shows, so to speak, in that they have no specific gender they're designed for. Which is why I'm so fond of the block.

Star Driver had quite a bit of yaoi subtext, and it was popular with both genders. Its BD's are selling pretty well, too. But it ran in a totally different timeslot (5pm Sunday), so it may be apples and oranges.

The 2nd episode of Anohana and C got a 2.5% rating. The 3rd episode got a 3.9% rating apparently. It came to a point this week that the slot reached up to 5.5%. I got this from the Animation ratings discussion.

Well it's time they finally bounced back. I hope we get Nodame ratings.

Perhaps noitaminA viewership is now predominantly otaku whereas before it wasn't. As such, for noitaminA to bring down good ratings going forward, it needs to have at least one of its two anime shows holding a strong otaku appeal. Anohana apparently had that. Fractale and Wandering Son seemingly did not have that (having watched Wandering Son myself, I thought it was an excellent show, but I don't think it's one that most otakus would be drawn to).

Now, looking at Usagi Drop and No. 6...

My sense is that Usagi Drop would probably appeal most to the traditional noitaminA viewership, but perhaps most of them have been lost for good. Otakus I'm much less certain of. Rin helps, but I'm not sure she's enough alone.

No. 6 has significant yaoi subtext in the very first episode (I don't recall Star Driver having that in the very first episode; even if it did, there was more heterosexual romantic undertones than yaoi ones). Yaoi is huge in manga, but seems to be (from what I can tell) much less popular in anime. Perhaps many male otakus actively avoid it.

Given these ratings, I'm a bit worried about how Usagi Drop and No. 6 will do going forward, because these are likely core elements to the show.

Perhaps noitaminA viewership is now predominantly otaku whereas before it wasn't. As such, for noitaminA to bring down good ratings going forward, it needs to have at least one of its two anime shows holding a strong otaku appeal. Anohana apparently had that. Fractale and Wandering Son seemingly did not have that (having watched Wandering Son myself, I thought it was an excellent show, but I don't think it's one that most otakus would be drawn to).

Now, looking at Usagi Drop and No. 6...

My sense is that Usagi Drop would probably appeal most to the traditional noitaminA viewership, but perhaps most of them have been lost for good. Otakus I'm much less certain of. Rin helps, but I'm not sure she's enough alone.

No. 6 has significant yaoi subtext in the very first episode (I don't recall Star Driver having that in the very first episode; even if it did, there was more heterosexual romantic undertones than yaoi ones). Yaoi is huge in manga, but seems to be (from what I can tell) much less popular in anime. Perhaps many male otakus actively avoid it.

Given these ratings, I'm a bit worried about how Usagi Drop and No. 6 will do going forward, because these are likely core elements to the show.

Perhaps so, it's been a while since they aired a solid Josei show, so it may be a bit before they get their mojo back.